Mammuthus primegenius, more popularly known as the woolly mammoth, has spent its entire live living in extreme Arctic conditions. And because of its capability to adapt to the arctic environment, scientists have been studying this mammal in an effort to better understand what genetic changes differentiate it from the living elephants today.

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According to Science Recorder, through genomic analysis, scientists have identified some 1.4 million distinctive genetic variants seen only in Woolly Mammoths.

A study published on Thursday in the journal Cell revealed that researchers compared the genomes of two mammoths whose remains were found in permafrost in northeastern Siberia, one 18,500 years old and the other 60,000 years old, with genomes of three Asian elephants and one African elephant.

Dr. Vincent Lynch, study author and assistant professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago, said, "This is by far the most comprehensive study to look at the genetic changes that make a woolly mammoth a woolly mammoth."

He added, "They are an excellent model to understand how morphological evolution works, because mammoths are so closely related to living elephants, which have non of the traits they had."

What makes these mammoths differerent from elephants is, They possessed genetic changes that are associated with their skin and hair development, fat biology, insulin biology and temperature tolerance. All these variants would have helped the mammoths to adapt to their environment, according to Engadget.

Lynch said, "We think that these changes make sense in mammoths because we know that mammoth evolved long, thick hair, large fat deposits and lived in really cold places,and insulin signaling is important for fat biology because insulin regulates how much sugar in the blood is converted to energy and fat."

In a lab experiment, researchers used ancestral sequence reconstruction techniques to 'resurrect' a mammoth version of a gene called TRPV3 by transplanting it to human cells, the mammoth gene TRPV3 manufactured a protein that has a lower response to heat than the version found in ancient elephants, Reuters has learned.

Lynch believes that scientists will eventually have the ability to recreate a woolly mammoth from its genome. But Lynch stated a question: "If you're technically able to do something, should you do it?"

He then went on to say, "Mammoths are extinct and the environment in which they lived has changed, there are many animals on the edge of extinction that we should be helping instead." He said personally that he is opposed to the thought of resurrecting the mammoth.

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